This new report specifically anticipates risks to and from the major social media platforms in the 2024 elections, continuing CAP’s work to promote election integrity online and ensure free and fair elections globally. The report’s recommendations incorporate learnings from past elections and introduce new ideas to encourage technology platforms to safeguard democratic processes and mitigate election threats. In a world without standardized global social media regulation, ensuring elections are safe, accessible, and protected online and offline will require key actions to be taken ahead of any votes being cast—both in 2024 and beyond.
Topic:
Politics, Science and Technology, Elections, Democracy, Social Media, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Europe, India, Global Focus, and United States of America
During the first wave of COVID-19 infections, Kerala, a state in southern India,
successfully managed to contain the pandemic. As a result, the Kerala model of managing the
COVID-19 pandemic was celebrated as a success across the globe. However, at the time of writing,
it looks like the celebrations were a bit premature and the failure to contain the spurt in COVID19 infections in the state in a second wave also ascertains this fact. While the rest of India recovered
from the second wave of COVID-19 infections, Kerala struggled to bring the pandemic under
control. This paper examines the state capacity in terms of health infrastructure before and during
the pandemic. The paper also investigates the reasons behind the unravelling of the Kerala model
of pandemic management. We analyse the role and impact of clientelism and political hegemony
of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala over COVID-19 mitigation strategies. We also
investigate how Kerala’s effective pandemic response created a sort of performance legitimacy for
the LDF government.
Topic:
Politics, Hegemony, State, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Clientelism
Chandan Jain, Shagun Kashyap, Rahul Lahoti, and Soham Sahoo
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders’ quality,
the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education
qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for contesting elections, making it critical
to understand the role of politicians’ education in their performance. We investigate the impact of
electing an educated politician on economic development in the politician’s constituency in India.
We use constituency-level panel data on the intensity of night-time lights to measure economic
activity. Our identification strategy is based on a regression discontinuity design that exploits quasirandom outcomes of close elections between educated and less-educated politicians. We find that
narrowly electing a graduate leader, as compared to a non-graduate leader, in the state assembly
constituency increases the growth rate of night-time lights by about three percentage points in the
constituency. As pathways, we find that graduate leaders improve the provision of roads,
electricity, and power; however, they do not significantly impact the overall provision of public
goods. In comparison with findings from other studies in the literature, our result suggests that
the impact of formal education of the leader is weaker than the leader’s other characteristics, such
as gender or criminality.
Political polarization is a process of simplifying politics by presenting either-or-choices to the public. In many cases, polarization damages democracy by dividing the electorate into two mutually mistrustful camps. Political polarization is mainly used by political elites, including government and party leaders, as a strategy to mobilize their supporters and concentrate their power. Based on the literature of political polarization, EAI Senior Fellow Sook Jong Lee (professor at Sungkyunkwan University) examines four Asian case countries (India, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand). The author notes that characteristics of political polarization differ from country to country, which is evidenced through the division of political ideology during various Thai military coups and the separation between the Hindu and Muslim communities in India. She also warns against the possible aftermaths of political polarization such as the breakdown or erosion of democracy.
Topic:
Politics, Democracy, Polarization, and Democratic Backsliding
Political Geography:
India, Asia, South Korea, Philippines, and Thailand